1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to cooking apparatus, and more particularly to automatic forced air food heating apparatus for completing the cooking of partially precooked fried foods, such as french fries.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Forced air heating devices for completing the cooking of partially precooked fried foods are well known in the prior art. Such devices are shown and described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,155,294, issued to Jerome Langhammer and Richard C. Winkler on May 22, 1979; in U.S. Pat. No. 4,295,419, issued to Jerome Langhammer on Oct. 20, 1981; in U.S. Pat. No. 3,870,193, issued to J. Raymond Schneider on May 11, 1975; in U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,292, issues to Jean Deprimus Cinter on Apr. 30, 1974; U.S. Pat. No. 4,455,924, issued to Robert J. Wenzel on Jun. 26, 1984; U.S. Pat. No. 4,157,061, issued to Albert F. Margus, Jr. on Jun 5, 1979; U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,429, issued to John Hawkins on May 6, 1986; U.S. Pat. No. 3,690,247, issued to R. E. Van Cleve, et al. on Sep. 12, 1972; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,491,065, issued to Larry Poulson on Jan. 1, 1985.
No representation or admission is made that any of the above-listed patents is part of the prior art, or that a search has been made, or that no more pertinent information exists.
A copy of each of the above-listed patents was supplied to the United States Patent and Trademark Office with the present patent application.
Prior art forced air food heating devices such as those of the Langhammer, Langhammer and Winkler, and Poulson patents require that each charge of foodstuffs to be heated be manually inserted into the heating basket by the operator, and manually removed from the heating basket by the operator.
This manual mode of operation has several major disadvantages, not the least of which is the exposure of the operator to the hazard of painful burns occasioned by hand or arm contact with the hot heating basket. This hazard is especially great in establishments in which the operator has many duties in addition to the operation of such food heating devices. Such establishments, e.g., bars, taverns, motion picture theaters, and the like, constitute a major field of application for forced air food heating devices. Further, this hazard may in some cases cause insurance underwriters to deny insurance coverage to such establishments. Yet further, this hazard may cause considerable difficulty with state and federal occupational health and safety authorities. In addition to these safety, hazards, such prior art manually operated forced air forced heating devices require sufficient operator attention, especially during the food charging and discharging operations, as to be economically marginal in situations in which the attention of the operator is already substantially fully occupied with other duties, such as bartending, selling theater tickets, etc.
(The term "prior art" as used herein or in any statement made by or on behalf of applicants means only that any document or thing referred to as prior art bears, directly or inferentially, a date which is earlier than the effective filing date hereof.)